It’s one of the nation’s most celebrated creations – and now Kerrygold butter has been hailed as the “butteriest butter” in the world.

Tasters who tried leading brands even eulogised about unwrapping a half-pound block of Kerrygold, describing it as “almost transcendent”.

The butter had New York Times taste testers churning out compliments about its golden colour before they had even tasted the spread.

Their review said: “The experience of unwrapping a brick of Kerrygold Salted Butter is almost transcendent.

“Peeling back the golden foil, catching a glimpse of the similarly golden butter beneath, and you’re reaching for a knife and a slice of bread before you even know what you’re doing.”

This will come as no surprise to people here and Kerrygold is now our most successful food export, as the only Irish food brand to exceed €1bn sales worldwide in a single year.

It is the No 1 butter brand in Germany, the top imported butter in the US and the No2 butter in America overall – a market of around 130million households.

More than 11million packs of Kerrygold butter and cheese are sold around the world each week.

The New York Times described it as “the butteriest butter” and the review added: “Kerrygold was one of the few butters in our tests that spread well when cold, without crumbling or lumping too stubbornly on the bread.

“At room temperature it slid on the bread with one satisfyingly smooth motion, and rather than melting, it sat in a glossy, thick, even layer.

“The texture was luxuriously creamy, dense, and silky, without any mouth-coating greasiness. It’s addictively salty, especially at room temperature, but it’s a well-balanced saltiness.

“The flavour of the pasture really comes forward in this butter, with fresh, grassy notes, alongside a slightly cheesy, animal flavour.

“It’s a true reflection of the verdant fields it hails from.”

It went on to extol the fact that the milk it’s made with comes from grass-fed cows in Ireland.

A spokesman for Ornua, the dairy farmers’ co-op that produces Kerrygold, said: “Irish dairy farmers produce the world-class milk which makes Kerrygold a world-famous butter.”

The American tasting team tried 17 salted butters and baked with 11 unsalted butters to make their recommendations – and Kerrygold was top of the list.

The review concluded: “Golden, grassy, and velvety: Kerrygold is the closest thing to the platonic ideal of butter in most supermarkets...

“It’s rich but not unctuous, and its velvety mouthfeel dissipates into a clean finish without leaving behind a greasy coat.”

Ornua has a workforce of 2,900 employees, operating from ten business units worldwide, including 13 production facilities, some of them packing plants abroad.

Its flagship butter production facility and global home is Kerrygold Park in Mitchelstown, Co. Cork.